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Han Han’s U-Turn?

By Eric Abrahamsen January 26, 2012 10:54 amJanuary 26, 2012 10:54 am

Shiho Fukada for The New York TimesHan Han, the Chinese writer and blogger, in Shanghai in February 2010.

BEIJING — Three weeks after Han Han, China’s most prominent blogger, published three controversial blog posts in which he casts a sullen eye on Revolution, Democracy and Freedom, the online debate has slid into absurdity.

The latest nonsense came from Mai Tian, another popular blogger, who asserted that Han Han could not possibly be the author of his blog posts, given that he was racing cars on some of the same days they were published.
Han Han — novelist, racecar driver, and by the numbers the world’s most-read blogger — is a spokesman for youthful discontent in China. His caustic commentary on current events gives voice to popular outrage at official corruption and abuse of power, while avoiding direct attacks on the government that might result in censorship of his blog. The three essays mark his first foray into taking straightforward political positions.

Most of Han Han’s detractors, whether domestic or foreign, seem to be objecting to his preference for reform over revolution: his three essays are relentlessly skeptical about spirited resistance, essentially denying the heroism of dissidents. Further comments on the Chinese people’s lack of civic spirit and the hopelessness of opposing the government have made the essays even less popular.

They’ve been seen as a betrayal by many more liberal minded readers who thought Han Han was on their side, and most damning, they’ve drawn praise from conservative government commentators.

The greatest shame is that Han Han is now seen as espousing that most hateful of canards: that the Chinese people are not “ready” for democracy. But his answer to this criticism comes in the second of his three posts.
In describing the impossibility of overturning the Communist Party, he says: “It can no longer simply be seen as a political party or a social class. Often, the ills of the Party are the ills of the people… the Party is the people itself. The problem isn’t what to do about the Party. If you can change the people, you’ll change everything. Law, education and culture are the root.”

In this he’s exactly right: China’s deepest problems are cultural and social in nature, problems best addressed by reform, not revolution. It’s not that the Chinese are “not ready,” it’s that this will be a slow process.

“When the drivers in China turn their high-beams down as they pass each other on the road, they will be ready for revolution,” writes Han Han. “Of course, by then, revolution won’t be necessary.” Instead, he argues, the process will be a gradual one, in which the cultural values conducive to democracy evolve along with democracy itself. “Democracy is a long process of negotiation.”

Anyone who’s sat in on a Chinese primary school class, or a management meeting in a Chinese company, or witnessed authority being wielded at nearly any level of Chinese society, knows how long this process may be.
An unhealthy deference to power is taught from an early age, as is a deep reluctance to pass on responsibility downward. The “not ready” argument is employed constantly within Chinese society, from parents who won’t let their children run in the park, to judges who aren’t allowed to make independent rulings. Many Beijing driving schools don’t include on-road training, because it would be “dangerous”— never mind what happens after the license is issued.

I once had the chance to articulate this point to a young Chinese man, and failed. We had gone on a hike outside Beijing, and on the way back he told me a story from his high school days, when his class had been allowed to elect their class leader.

Like smart-aleck teenagers anywhere, they had chosen the class clown, someone totally unsuited to the responsibility. The teacher overruled their decision and picked someone else. If the teacher hadn’t done so, my hiking companion said looking at me sideways, “we’d have been stuck with that idiot all year.”

It had been a long, hot day, and it didn’t dawn on me that I was being asked to speak on behalf of Western civilization— I think I grunted in response. What I should have said, of course, was that the teacher ought to have stuck them with the idiot. That after a year of incompetent student leadership, the students would learn to take their responsibility more seriously. That it was better to get it wrong early on, when the consequences were less severe. That democracy is a long, slow process of negotiation, no matter when it starts.